What’s not to love about this book? Once again Matthew Quick serves up a group of quirky, oddball characters, the kind of people many of us would hurry by if we were to pass them on the street, and challenges us to change our expectations and accept personality types that are vastly different than those we’ve come to expect as “normal."
The Sunday Salon: Regrouping
Ah, summer. You have finally deigned to grace us with your presence, and those of us here in the midwest are appropriately grateful. I am showing my gratitude this Independence Day weekend by exercising my freedom to sit on the deck, read, ride my bike, read, go for a ride in our classic sports car, read, eat lunch at a favorite outdoor cafe, read...well, you get the picture.
Life In General: Off Kilter
I woke up feeling off kilter, out of my element, draggy, decrepit, and a little dispirited. “This is still the age of dinosaurs, only these days I’m the dinosaur,” writes Karen Maezen Miller, in her book Paradise in Plain Sight. That is how I feel today: slowing lumbering along and stiff-leggedly plodding through a world that whizzes by 100 miles an hour.
Write On Wednesday: Small Doses
Sometimes life lessons come in unexpected places.
Like from exercise videos.
I wrote about it once before, in Life In General, in a chapter called “You Can’t Do It Wrong.” My favorite exercise videos are Leslie Sansone’s Walk At Home program, and Leslie herself always provides an extra dose of energy and “feel-good-ness” that I appreciate to start my day. Her upbeat optimism and encouraging words (like “You can’t do it wrong!”) are the best thing an exercise averse person such as myself needs to hear.
The other day I was in the “cool down” phase of a video I’ve done many times before, when a particular phrase jumped out at me.
TLC Book Tours: Whisper Beach
From The Publisher
When a group of friends reunite in the idyllic beach town where they grew up, they must reevaluate their loyalty to one another or lose their friendship forever
Twelve years ago, Vanessa “Van” Moran fell in love and lost her virginity—but not to the same boy. She fled Whisper Beach desperate and pregnant, never telling a soul about her secret. Now a professional Manhattan organizer, she must return home for the first time to attend the funeral of her best friend’s husband. Van intends to only stay for a weekend, but her plans fall by the wayside as the troubles of this coastal town draw her in.
Dorie, the owner of the pier’s infamous Blue Crab Restaurant where Van and her friends worked as teenagers, enlists Van’s help to save the nearly bankrupt eatery. While Van throws herself into this new task, the man she once loved reenters her life, willing to pick up where they left off.
As the restaurant begins to thrive and Van reconnects with old friends, trouble comes from an unexpected source and she realizes she must face the decisions of her past or sacrifice this new life she has so carefully built.
For Van, this summer will test the meaning of friendship and trust—and how far love can bend before it breaks.
In theory, Whisper Beach is the kind of book I love to read, especially in the summer. With it’s small seaside town setting, the troubled heroine who returns to her roots and finds love and understanding, an ensemble cast of characters who provide conflict and comic relief, it seemed destined to top my summer reading list.
Sadly, Whisper Beach, didn’t live up to its potential for me. The characters lacked the kind of depth that made me really care about them. Despite having lived through difficult circumstances, they didn’t seem to have learned or grown in positive ways. Although the story was well paced and moved quickly, the events and outcomes were fairly predictable. And though I’m usually a sucker for any of those little towns by the sea, Whisper Beach didn’t seem all that appealing either, with its faltering economy and failing businesses.
Purchase Links
Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble
About Shelley Noble
Shelley Noble is a former professional dancer and choreographer and has worked on a number of films. She lives at the Jersey shore where she loves to visit lighthouses and vintage carousels. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America.
Find out more about Shelley at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.
For more reviews, check out the TLC Book Tours schedule here.